


Port in a Storm

by Lizardlicks



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst From Left Field, Bubble Nests, Domestic Fluff, Family Planning, Feralstuck, Found Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medicinal Drug Use, Oviparous Trolls, Parenthood, Sorry There's No Grubs In This One, Troll Culture, wound care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-14 04:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10529163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardlicks/pseuds/Lizardlicks
Summary: The first thing you notice is how big he is.  That is, right after the, you know, the fins.  And the gills.  And that he’s definitely a fucking seatroll stalking around far, far too upstream.  How the hell does a seatroll end up here of all places?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt for this fill was: "Karkat the freshwater troll saves Eridan when he mistakes freshwater for saltwater."
> 
> I since expanded into a second chapter. As you do.

The first thing you notice is how big he is.  That is, right after the, you know, the fins.  And the gills.  And that he’s definitely a fucking _seatroll_ stalking around far, far too upstream.  How the hell does a seatroll end up here of all places?  More importantly, why hasn’t he gone back?  You can tell the fresh water irritates his gills, and he spends more time sunning himself on the bank and looking kind of mopey and betrayed at the water than actually in it.

You aren’t exactly complaining because he’s been driving off the big blues and indigos that used to claim this spot as their territory.  Except no, actually you are, because instead of a bunch of big highblood assholes, you have one HUGE highblood asshole, and you haven’t been any closer to the water than about twenty yards in the last week and a half.  The other trolls used to mess with you if they caught you.  Some of them might have even ignored you as long as you were properly deferent, and only took the smallest fish out of the river. This guy?  You have no idea what his deal is.  

So far all he’s done is challenge the river lords to one duel after the next.  Now most of your days are blissfully harassment free, but you still don’t dare get close, and the river was one of your best sources for good, easy to catch protein.  The fact that you have functioning gills that are unbothered by freshwater made it easy.  Easier than hares, much easier than deer or wild hogs. You’re hungry, you’re craving meat, and you’re getting desperate enough to turn stupid.

Today he’s draped himself on a rock that sticks out over the water.  You approach slowly, picking a wide path in clear view, giving him time to notice you and react, which you hope will give you enough time to run for it if he decides to kick your ass.  You know he’s aware of you when you get close; his fins twitch and he growls, low and soft like distant thunder.  Not a threat yet, but dangerous all the same.

“I’m not here to fight you,” is what you open with, which sounds stupid when you hear it, but by then it’s too late to take it back.  He doesn’t even turn his head to acknowledge you, just looks at you sidelong and chuffs.

“Good for you.  Fuck off.”

Anger sparks and ignites like a lightning strike.  Fuck off?  Fuck him!  You were here first, you’ve paid your damned ounce in blood, and he thinks he can just swim in and take over?  You take three steps forward with your horns lowered before you’ve had time to properly contemplate just how suicidally dumb that is.  The seatroll does something… odd.  At first you think he’s moving slow to spite you.  Causal, because you hardly constitute a threat, all five feet of you, but he lowers his horns too, and the growl plummets in tone and leaps in volume until the sound reminds you of a waterfall in a flash flood.

Then you notice he’s not just slow, he’s stiff.  He keeps his right flank angled away from you, exposing his left, even though it would be smarter just to leap at you from the advantage of higher ground and use his sheer mass to overpower you.  The sounds of brutal, bloody fighting drift up on your memory, hardly two days past.  He’d got into it with the biggest blue on this side of the river, the one that liked to pin you down and prod his fingers places you’d rather he didn’t whenever he caught you.  You can’t say you were sorry to see that guy missing an eye, a horn and several teeth after the fact.

Another stupid idea starts to crystallize, cutting sharp through your shifting thoughts.  Despite the fact that it feels unnatural, you put on your best friends-making face and loosen your posture, offering him a turned head with slightly tilted back horns.

“Okay, listen up shit nugget.  You’ve waded yourself up the totally fucked creek here, and I don’t know why you’ve insisted on sticking around, but hell if I don’t appreciate you dealing out the hurt to the rest of these assholes in the process.  You’re not going to last much longer without some help, though.”

“You’d help me,” he says flatly, disbelieving, then follows it with, “Why?”

You shrug, trying for nonchalant, even though you feel anything but right now.  “Mutually beneficial?  You keep kicking the glutes of trolls I don’t like, I keep you in fighting shape, we both win.”

“Yeah?”  He sneers.  “What makes you think I need help from a runt?”

“I’ve had practice patching people up,” you tell him.  You decline to mention that by people you mostly mean yourself.  He seems to consider you wearily for a long time.  Long enough that you’ve started to think he’s sizing you up for the fastest way to kill you, but then he relaxes a fraction and turns his head away.

“I’m Karkat,” you say and take another slow step toward his perch.  He grumbles indistinctly for a moment then-

“Eridan.  Ampora clan.”

That surprises you.  You didn’t expect a troll still attached to a clan name to be alone and struggling in a new, unfamiliar territory.   You stop at the base of his rock and wait, not wanting to corner him and leave him no retreat save the water that hurts him or going through you.

“You want to come down here so I can see the damage?”

“Not particularly,” he says, but he does move, mincing his way down to you with snarls and bluffs the whole time.  The wound is obvious when he lets you come around to his other flank, oozing and crusted over with blood.  You suck your bottom lip under your teeth and try not to wince.  It’s a long gouge that runs from shoulder blade to hip bone, an inch wide at least, and just missing the edges of his gills.  He got lucky.

You pull your knapsack from you shoulders and start rummaging.  “You aren’t going to like this, but we need to wash that out.  Go get in the river.”  

He whines. “That _hurts_.”

“Trust me, you won’t even notice it.”  Cleaning the wound out is going to hurt a lot more, you’re sure.  

It does.  Eridan is quiet save for the sharp gasps of breath he sucks in through clenched teeth while you flush the injury.  You find and gently pick out little orangey shards with your claw tips as you work.  Now you know what happened to that other guy’s horn.  He’s panting raggedly by the time you lead him back out of the water and sit him down on the bank. You drag the knapsack you left behind to go wading over to you and dig out other things.  Eridan eyes you, wary of more pain.  

“Here,” you say and press a leaf into his hand, “Chew this with your back teeth and suck, but don’t swallow the whole leaf.”  He stares at it blankly, then at you.

“What?”

“It makes things-” you stop and flail one hand like you could pluck words out of the air.  “I don’t know, fuzzy?  Like you’re dreaming but still awake.  Just don’t actually eat the leaf, you’ll go completely loopy.  I knew a troll that liked to bake the things into his food once, it was fucked up.”

“That ain’t reassurin’,” he tells you.  You huff an aggravated sigh.

“It’ll help with the pain.”  He still looks askance, but he does as you instructed anyway.  You wait until you can feel the tension in his body start to fade before you pull out a bottle, unstop it, then upend the liquid inside over his wound.  The sharp smell burns your eyes and sinuses, but you know from experience it burns in blood more.  He flinches and hisses, but not much else.

It’s not a clean cut with two cleaved sides.  There’s skin missing in the middle, and some of it has started healing over, so you don’t think you can stitch it back together, but you can dress it and hope.  Eridan’s going to have a scar no matter what.

By the time you’re done Eridan has melted huge and heavy into your lap.  You have the strangest urge to pet his hair, and are surprised by the purr he offers when you do.

“Ahaha wow, that stuff hit you pretty hard, huh?”

“Shuddup,” he slurs a little and butts his head against your hand to encourage more petting.  “Jus’ feels nice, issall.”

You comb your claws through the bright purple streak of his hair and wonder how long it’s been since he’s had this kind of quiet touch.  Clan bonded trolls are always more touchy, and tactile.  

“Where’s your clan anyway,” you don’t stop yourself from asking out loud before it’s too late, and for a moment you think you might have fucked up because Eridan’s purr stutters.  Then he sighs.

“Weren’t much of it left anyhow, jus’ me an’ my bro.  Then he fucked off, and the humans showed up in the old territory, and I didn’t have anyplace to go.”

“So you swam up river!?”  You can hardly believe that logic.  There’s miles of beaches, you’re sure, so why didn’t he just pick a new spot?

“No I…”  He coughs, sounding completely embarrassed.  “I washed up after a storm tide swept me inland.  Followed my nose to the closest body a water I could, and well, here I am.”

“That is monumentally stupid.  Oh my god, how do you live with no survival instincts.”

He snorts and then you yelp because he just pinched your thigh, but he turns a grin up at you all the same.  “Luck.  An’ hope, I guess.”

“Hope. You’re hope _less_.”  You stoke a claw around one of his horn beds and watch him sag and sigh.

“Found you, didn’t I?”

“No.   _I_ found _you_ , and then I took pity on your sorry-ass fins.”

“You pity me.”  He’s still grinning, you know he’s joking, looking to see if you have buttons to push, but you sputter anyway.

“Can you find any sense of propriety in that empty pan of yours and shove it up your ass, please?”

He laughs.  “I ain’t the one that started getting fondlenub happy with a strangers horns.”  

Oh.  GOD.  You blush so hard your face goes hot and you snatch your hand away.  Wow, yeah you were kind of making some assumptions there, thinking he was clan bonded, and what with the way he was so quickly comfortable with being in your space and having you in his. You can’t keep up the lie to yourself in this moment, you still remember what family felt like, the comfort of your sire and your hatchmate, before they… before…  You were just doing what felt right, but now you don’t even know why, because it isn’t like you’ve felt that way with another troll for a long time.

Eridan’s hand closes over the back of your neck, huge and strong, reminding you suddenly that he could kill you with hardly any effort, even while hurting like he is, but then he pulls you down to his chest and presses a kiss to your temple.

“Fishes’ tits, but your are precious,” he purrs.  You can’t bring yourself to look at his face, but you don’t have to to know that he’s smiling.  Your cheeks sting.

“Look let’s uh… could we do this someplace not in front of the whole fucking forest?”

“You wanna take it someplace more private?”  You can feel the suppressed chuckle in his chest, more teasing, apparently.  That makes what you wanted to say scramble around on your tongue like a cornered squeakbeast.

“If you want to, yeah.  I mean.  It’s cool.  I’m cool if you’re cool.  Are we… cool?”  Eridan is quiet at that for a longer stretch of time than you were expecting. Oh god, ohgodohgodohgod you silently beg you didn’t just stick your damn foot in it.  

When he stands he lifts you with him, carrying you easily tucked to his side while your heart flutters and makes your head spin.  His smile has turned gentle, no more prod to it, and you melt just a little under its warmth.  “Where do you want to go?”

You smile back, feeling all the tiny butterflies in your chest.  “Anywhere.”


	2. Chapter 2

**  
**“Eridan?” **  
**

You lift you head from the cooking fire when he finally saunters in from wherever the fuck he’s been hiding all day.  He’s smiling a smug little self-satisfied grin and dripping wet, leaving muddy tracks across your floor.

“Hey, hey, go shake off- not in here!”  You hunch, trying to shield your tiny fire from the sudden assault of flying water.  “You want raw trout tonight?  No, never mind, forget I asked that.  You’d eat it when it’s still moving.”

“Aw, that’s the fun part.”  He’s still smiling at you, like he’s got a secret and can’t wait to tell it.  He flops down, heedless of the space he takes up- which is quite a lot in your little den, thanks so much, Eridan- and pulls you into his lap.  You hardly have time to squawk a protest; he starts right in nibbling and nuzzling against your jaw with lake chilled lips, sending a shiver down your spine.

“Why- _eee_!,”  your voice cracks on a squeak.  He chuckles.  Fucking jerk.  You play-snap at him, missing of course, but it makes him back off long enough for you to string together a sentence.  “Why were you swimming anyway?  Your gills are going to get mucked up again.”

The problem with your seatroll is that he’s a _sea_ troll, and you live on a river.  Fresh water never bothered your gills for whatever reason, but he was in sorry shape when you found him, and not just from the fighting.  Took you three weeks to get the inflammation down and he wouldn’t stop whining the whole time.  Why now is he risking that again?

“I was working on somethin’ very important.  The most important, in fact.”

“Oh _really_.”

“Yes.  Actually, you need to come see it.”  He doesn’t wait for you to give him an answer, just lifts you up like you’re no more burden to him than a knapsack.  Which, if you’re being honest, you probably don’t even rate that high to a fully grown ocean giant that can carry you in one arm.  You swat his shoulder.

“Dinner first.”

“But-”

“I caught it.  I cooked it.  I’m eating it.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but his stomach growls suddenly.  He sighs while you smirk.  “Fine, but then you gotta come with me.”

“Deal.”

 

* * *

 

“ _Oh_ …”  Maybe you shouldn’t have insisted on eating first, your stomach is trying to twist itself up into anxious knots.  He’s brought you down the river bank a ways, to a place you know well, because it’s where you used to go to lick your wounds back when the big blues that liked to give you a hard time once staked their claim here.  That was before Eridan had literally washed up on your shore and decided he belonged here, belonged with you, and made you safe, warm and loved in a way you had been sorely missing.

Here, a scoop of shore and a sand bar forms a little bowl and the water slows.  It’s overhung by sheltering trees and well hidden from any direction but the river.  Right now, the water has nearly come to a standstill because someone- someone big, and stupidly piteous, that you love so dearly it hurts on occasion - has dammed up most of it with branches, rocks, and mud, leaving only a little inlet to keep the new, still pool from stagnating.  And smack in the middle is a large bubble nest.

It’s.  It’s a really _nice_ bubble nest, you can certainly appreciate that.  Uniform, very well shaped, good coverage.  Anyone who got a look at that would be jealous.  You can tell Eridan spent a lot of time and care in its crafting, and you’re sure he’d devote himself just as thoroughly to tending eggs and raising your spawn.  This should be touching.  You don’t know why the thought of helpless new grubs is sending you into a panic instead of filling you up with warm fuzzies.

“What do you think?” he prompts after you’ve stood their for a full minute not saying a damned thing, while trying to swallow around the lump in your throat.

“Very nice,” you offer, then wince at your own dumb mouth.

Eridan doesn’t seem to notice, he just perks up and smiles.  “Yeah?”

“It’s…”  You try to fish around your pan for something, anything else to say, but come up blank.  Aw fuck.  “It’s _really_ nice, but… we need to talk about this first.”

You hate the way his fins fall just the tiniest bit as he tries not to look heartbroken and fails.  “Yeah.  Of course.  It’s a big kinda deal.”

“A huge deal.  We’d have wigglers.  We’d be a… a clan.”  Oh.  There it is.  There’s the deep, half-hidden well of old trauma feeding all your doubt and fear.  The ugly thing rears up and sinks its teeth in, forcing tears up to the surface.

“You… don’t want that,” he tries to guess at your meaning.  You start to shake your head then catch yourself, fearing he might take it the wrong way.

“I don’t want to lose my family again.”

“Oh,” he gentles all of a sudden, and reaches for you.  You go without resistance when he pulls you against this chest and tucks you into the circle of his arms. “Oh, _Kar_.  My precious heart…”

You hitch one breath and then the next, trying fruitlessly to hold back the building flood of memories while Eridan nuzzles between your horns and croons.  It took you so long to bury the pain under mundane, day-to-day survival, even longer to lay to rest the idea of finding your clan.  Faces and familiarity had been ripped from you, and the only thing you’d had left to hold yourself together was the instinct to live.  And then _this_ fucker, he just had to go and fall hornslong into you, and drag you out into the undertow of his current.  He had to go and make you _happy_.  And how much happier could you be with a clutch or three, all jewel bright colored grubs, and squealing pupas underfoot?

Knowing that he wants that with you, that he feels that same pull to cling forever and never let go, it hits you so hard it leaves you dizzy.  How could you survive the heartbreak this time, if that all crashed down around your ears?

“I can’t.  Eridan I can’t…”

He hums and shushes you softly.  Big, cold paws cradle the back of your head, stroke soothing circles into your back as you try and fail to keep from breaking apart.  You hate him a little for being so calm and understanding about it.

“We don’t have to, Kar, I just.  I thought you might.  With me.”

You sniffle, muffled against his chest.  “The really messed up part is, I actually want to.  But I’m also fucking terrified, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Me either.”  He sighs and hugs you tighter.  “I can’t promise it will always be sunshine, an’ daisies, an’ perfect happy hopbeasts, ‘cause that’s a load a fuckin’ cockamamie shit.  The best I can give is myself an’ if that ain’t good enough…”  He trails off and you feel him shrug.  “I don’t want to lose you either.”

“Lucky you, seems I misplaced all my common sense.  Doesn’t look like you’ll be getting rid of me any time soon.”

You both lapse into silence, and he keeps on petting you, soothing out the tremors that had started to sink into your limbs.  In the distance, a long chorus of trills calls out over the water, your neighbors evidently finding no such difficulties with spawning.  They’ll have their claws full when their eggs hatch no doubt.  At least you and Eridan wouldn’t have to deal with tiny, fussy psionic wigglers.  

A thought bubbles up among the others swirling around the whirlpool of your mind.  It’s not clear or well formed, but something about the potential of it makes it stick out.

“Let’s wait a season.”

“I’d wait as long as you want, Kar.  Give you a whole eternity.”

“Sap,” you chuckle and kiss his mouth.  “I mean, there’s gonna be other grubs about.  Maybe we can… um.  I don’t know, help out?”

He blinks and tilts his head.  “You mean practice?”

When he says it like that it sounds stupid, but you try to shrug it off nonchalantly.  “I guess so, yeah.”

Eridan flicks an ear fin as another echo of joined mating calls drifts down your shore.  “That’s not a bad idea.”

“Yeah,” you say, embolded by his agreement.  “And I’d like to plan for a bigger garden.  And we’d need more den space…”

“Okay, planin’ an’ practice, we’ll try it the Karkat way.”  He laughs when you gently headbutt his chin, and he places another kiss right between your horns.  Then he nuzzles down to your fin, and mouths a little line over your jaw, and into the hollow of your throat like he thinks he’s being clever and distracting.  Damn you, it works.  You chirp, and tilt you head back.

“You think maybe,” his voice hums against the sensitive flesh and makes you shiver, “that we can practice the before-the-wigglers bits, too?

“Mm,” you purr, “ yes, definitely.”


End file.
